In this report, VIVIAN OKEJEME seeks the views of lawyers on the apex court judgement which fi nally rested the seeming protracted PDP crisis
One of the remarkable results of the judgement of the Supreme Court of July 12th, 2017, which put an end to the protracted crisis in the Peoples Democratic Party, is that it saved the country from sliding into a one-party state, stakeholders have remarked. It is widely believed that while the crisis lasted, the country was already descending into a one-party state with the governing All Progressive Congress, already boasting of victory in the next 2019 general elections. Th is development, if not savaged by the apex court, the nation would have found itself in a situation where other parties are either outlawed or allowed to take only a limited and controlled participation in elections, thereby denting the nation’s budding democracy.
In nearly two decades of its existence, PDP has devised ways out of upheavals that threatened its survival. However, the Ahmed Makarfi and Ali-Modu Sheriff leadership crisis was almost a doom for the 19-year-old party which drove the aff airs of Nigeria for 16 years under three Presidents; Olusegun Obasanjo, Umaru Yar’Adua and Goodluck Jonathan. Attempts by some prominent members to resolve the crisis, including former President Goodluck Jonathan, were eff orts in futility. Th e farthest both groups could go at a meeting brokered by Governor Seriake Dickson of Bayelsa state, was to agree to a “ceasefi re” and stop making public statements on the brouhaha . In a communiqué released at the end of their meeting , the warring factions resolved, “that all actors of the party should desist from making derogatory, infl ammatory and divisive statements against party offi cials, stakeholders and members.
‘
“Th at the party should not dissipate her energy amongst itself but to focus on how to unite and be a formidable opposition capable of taking over power from the failed APC led government. “Th at all key actors in the on-going peace process should henceforth desist from making public press statements attacking each other and statements insinuating negative acts capable of dragging the party to the mud. “In conclusion, all key actors in the PDP have agreed to work together with the National Reconciliation Committee led by Governor Seriake Dickson to engender peace and genuine reconciliation,” What the lawyers say Reacting to the eff ect of the long drawn internal battle that bedeviled the party, a Professor of law and Head of Commercial law at the Nigerian institute of Advanced Legal Studies, Paul Idornigie, SAN, said the protracted crisis in the PDP cost them victory at the Ondo and Edo state governorship elections which the APC won. According to him, “maybe, the PDP would have won the Ondo and Edo State governorship elections, if the crisis had not rocked the party.” PDP crisis: Supreme Court verdict and lawyers’ perspectives Also in terms of counting costs, the crisis in the party did not end without a casualty, claiming the SANship of a senior lawyer, Mr. B.I. Nwofor, who represented the Ali Modu-Sheriff faction of the PDP. In the same vein, human rights activist, Mike Ozekhome ,SAN, said the apex court verdict has saved Nigeria from sliding into a one-party state. Th e constitutional lawyer posited that the judgement of the apex court had saved the most potent opposition, the PDP, from self-destruct and internally generated volcanic eruption. He described the Makarfi and Sheriff factions as “apples and oranges” when compared on an imaginary scale of geniuses. According to him, one was Japanese, the other, Taiwanese, in terms of originality and imitation.
“While the Makarfi faction appeared to have been fi ghting for the survival and wellness of the heart and soul of the vertically and horizontally fractured party that once imperiously boasted of ruling Nigeria for over 60 years in a stupor state of power inebriation, Modu Sheriff and his faction were bent on destroying it completely. It must have made the ruling APC green with envy in terms of the Sheriff ’s huge capacity to exert maximum damage to PDP’s corporate existence. “Have you ever seen a supposed opposition party fraternizing with and eulogizing the ruling party on every step taken, never criticizing it, yet tongue lashing its own party? Have you ever seen where a warring faction became allergic to a settlement that would raise its party up from its nadir of doldrums? “Once again, the judiciary, the whipping “boy” of our democracy, has risen to the challenge of saving Nigeria’s wobbling and imperiled democracy. A virile opposition constitutes the heart and soul of democracy.
Th e alternative is dictatorship” Also, the Executive Director, Policy and. Legal Advocacy Centre, PLAC, Barrister Clement Nwankwo, hailed the Supreme Court for the judgement. According to him, the apex court has restored opposition into the country. “I hail the Supreme Court for this judgement. It has restored the position of opposition into the country”, he said Also in terms of counting costs, the crisis in the party did not end without a casualty, claiming the SANship of a senior lawyer, Mr. B.I. Nwofor, who represented the Ali Modu-Sheriff faction of the PDP. According to the Legal Practitioners Privileges Committee which stripped Nwofor of his rank, he was involved in unprofessional conduct in the course of the case. Th e LPPC said the decision which was taken at the Committee’s 126th general meeting held on June 22 was contained in a letter from the privileges committee signed by the Chief Registrar of the Supreme Court, Ahmed Salleh. “Th e Legal Practitioner’s Privileges Committee at its 126th General Meeting held on June 22nd 2017, considered extensively the complaint fi led by the Court of appeal of Nigeria against Nwofor, Esq. A Senior Advocate of Nigeria with his response to same and all material facts and have decided that B. E. I. Nwofor Esq; a Senior Advocate of Nigeria conducted himself in a manner unbefi tting of a holder of the esteemed rank of Senior Advocate of Nigeria. “By reason of the foregoing, the rank of Senior Advocate of Nigeria (including all its privileges) has been withdrawn from B. E. I Nwofor, forthwith,” the statement said. Nwofor, who represented the Sheriff – led PDP in the legal battle for the party’s ticket ahead of last year’s governorship election in Ondo state. Th e faction had recorded a temporary victory by obtaining a judgment of the Federal High Court in Abuja, which recognized the faction’s preferred aspirant, Mr. Jimoh Ibrahim, as the PDP’s governorship candidate for the said governorship poll.
Th e LPPC described the conduct of Nwofor during the hearing of the case as “unbecoming of the holder of the esteemed rank of Senior Advocate of Nigeria.” Th e statement signed by the then Chief Registrar of the Supreme Court and Secretary of the LPPC, Mr. Ahmed Saleh, stated that the decision to strip Nwofor of his SAN rank was based on a petition fi led against the lawyer by the Court of Appeal. At the hearing stage of the matter at the Court of Appeal, Nwofor had a rancorous encounter with the Justice Ibrahim Saulawa-led three-man panel. Specifi cally, the November 16, 2016 proceedings went on for over fi ve hours in a tensed courtroom charged by the confrontation between members of the panel and Nwofor. And before the conclusion of the case, Nwofor, also on behalf of his client, fi led before the Supreme Court, two motions, one of which asked for a stay of the appeal court’s proceedings. Th e second motion also sought an order disbanding the Saulawa panel.
Th e Supreme Court on November 22, 2016, dismissed the two motions, paving the way for the Justice Saulawa panel to go ahead to deliver its judgment in the Ondo state PDP case earlier reserved to await the decision of the apex court. Incensed by the motions which Nwofor fi led on behalf of his clients, the Supreme Court after dismissing them, awarded cumulative fi nes of over N10million against the applicants and Nwofor, their lawyer, for fi ling the applications adjudged to have constituted an abuse of court process. Th e Justice Saulawa-led panel of the Court of Appeal eventually on November 23, 2016, delivered its judgment in which it sacked Jimoh Ibrahim as the PDP’s candidate in the governorship election. Th e Court of Appeal in the said judgment, returned the ticket to Jegede, who eventually contested but lost the November 26, 2016 poll to the APC’s candidate and now incumbent governor of the state, Mr. Rotimi Akeredolu. With the Supreme Court judgment that gave Makarfi victory over Sheriff , will the party members who defected to the opposition parties as a result of the leadership tussle reconsider and go back to the once robust biggest party in Africa?
